If you’ve ever frozen food, you’ve preserved food. If you’d like to branch out into canning, dehydrating and fermenting, I’d love to be your guide.
Explore step-by-step tutorials, tips, and recipes to help you stock your pantry with homemade preserves, dried fruits and vegetables, tangy ferments, and freezer-friendly meals. These methods not only extend the life of your harvest but also bring the flavors of each season to your table all year long.
Preserving food is more than a skill—it’s a way to embrace simple living and stay connected to the food you grow or source locally.
I’ve written two books on preserving food, The Ultimate Guide to Preserving Vegetables and Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond.
Here are some free preserving food worksheets that will help you keep all your preserved food organized.
During the summer Mustang grapes grow all over our area. Mustang grapes are similar to muscadine grapes. We use these tart grapes to make grape jelly and juice, of course, but we also use them to make grape jam. Grape jam is usually made with whole grapes that have been seeded but I prefer to …
When you make home canned soups you end up with a meal in a jar instead of ingredients to make a meal. Canning soup at home helps you be better prepared for emergencies and for busy weeknight dinners. A friend recently told me that someone told her, “You can only can soups at home using …
This sausage, potato and kale soup is an adaptation of Olive Garden’s “Zuppa Toscana” soup. I love making soups but when I can adapt them for canning it’s even better. Keeping hearty, home canned soups on hand as saved more weeknight meals than I’d like to admit. The Ultimate Guide to Preserving Vegetables has step …
Traditionally fermented pickles are easy to make and full of probiotic goodness for your gut. These pickles are usually known as sour pickles. They aren’t canned and there’s no vinegar. Every summer we make jar after jar of these naturally pickled cucumbers to preserve for the year. We make whole dill pickles, spears and pickle …
I’ve recently learned that not everyone loves okra as much as I do. There are people in my family that love it and there are those who tolerate it. I try to work within the likes and dislikes of my family so we prepare it in a variety of ways. Of course, we fry it, …
There’s a cycle that happens every year in our neck of the woods. Every November through January we have more citrus than we know what to do with. Everyone is “sharing” and hoping someone will take some oranges, grapefruit, and Meyer lemons off their hands before they go bad. Then every summer everyone is wishing …
Venison usually refers to deer meat but it can also include any wild game meat such as elk, carabao, and antelope. Canning venison is a great way to preserve the fall harvest and fill your shelves with shelf stable foods for quick meals. It will also free up freezer space and help prepare you for …
Dehydrating apples is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to preserve your harvest. Whether you like chewy rings or crisp apple chips, the process is simple and the results are perfect for snacking, baking, or tossing into oatmeal. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the step-by-step process for dehydrating apples, cover different methods …
Bananas are a favorite fruit in our home because they are so very inexpensive, even the organic bananas are much cheaper per pound than other fruits. And when I can find them marked down because they’re getting brown I buy all I can. We love to dehydrate bananas to make banana chips and banana jerky. …
One of the things I get asked quite often is, “How do you store home canned food and what do you do with all those mason jars?” I get it, most of us are used to shopping for just a week or two at a time and the thought of having to store a years …
While freezing cucumbers is probably not the first thing people think of when they want to preserve cucumbers, it’s actually a very useful thing to do. Here’s the thing with freezing cucumbers, the texture will be different when they’re thawed. If you can accept that fact, you can successfully freeze cucumbers. You can freeze cucumbers …
Preserving zucchini and summer squash in a variety of ways is a wonderful way to cut your grocery bill and ensure your family has organic food through the winter months. We are in the height of zucchini and summer squash season right now and while it is overwhelming at times, it’s also a huge blessing. …
It is almost apple season and my family is so excited. While I will buy apples out of season for eating fresh, I won’t buy them out of season for anything else. Apples make a great snack on the go or to pack in a lunch so I buy the year round. I like preserving apples …
Water bath canning is used to preserve high acid foods by putting filled jars in a “bath” of boiling water. It’s a fantastic way to fill your pantry with jams, jellies, pickles and condiments. Hot water bath canning is usually the first canning someone does, and for good reason. With water bath canning you don’t …
We got seven peaches off our peach tree this year. Oh my, they were so very good! But obviously, with only seven we just ate them and didn’t even think about preserving them. So, I did what I do every year. I purchased peaches so I could actually preserve peaches for the rest of the …
I know, who can think of soups, especially heavy soups like chili in this heat? I do. In fact, every summer I spend a couple of days canning chili con carne and beef (or venison) stew for the winter. Why? Because it helps me feed the family home cooked meals even during the busy school …
Pressure canning is how you can stock your pantry with shelf stable low acid foods, such as vegetables, meats, legumes and even meals in jars. While it can seem intimidating at first, learning how to use a pressure canner is actually quite easy. It’s funny how when people find out that you pressure can food, …
Many years ago, I canned about 30 quarts of pear chutney. I had never tried pear chutney, in fact I had never even heard the word “chutney” before that day. But our pear tree was producing a bumper crop that year and I decided it would be fun to try something new. {ahem} No one liked it…not …
We kicked off July 4th weekend by going blueberry picking . Yes, we have blueberry bushes but they are not producing. Last year fire ants got into the pots and destroyed the roots. We bought new plants but they are still young. Normally, we would just go without but because of all the rain we …
Preserving tomatoes is a summer tradition in many homes. But preserving tomatoes can be more than spaghetti sauce and salsa. There are so many ways of preserving tomatoes and really, you need to do what is best for your family. Because I’m pretty simple, I mainly can tomatoes with onions and garlic and dehydrate tomatoes …